Fast food breakfasts often involve whipping into the drive-thru for a breakfast sandwich, hash browns, and coffee to quickly scarf in the car or at our desk. On those mornings, you probably don’t have time to think about the egg on your McDonald’s breakfast sandwich. But on the mornings when you have time to savor breakfast, you want the best ingredients available. But only the Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwiches feature a freshly cracked egg.
The rest are made with something called a “folded egg.” It’s precooked from liquid eggs and flash-frozen off-site, then reheated on the grill at the store. It’s real egg, and it’s not bad, but it’s kind of flat and rubbery. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to score a fresh, made-to-order egg. Just ask politely. Workers make the McMuffin eggs, cracked straight from the shell and grilled in an egg ring, periodically throughout the morning. So asking the staff to toss a fresh egg on the griddle is pretty straightforward.
But don’t ask for a ‘real egg’
All of McDonald’s eggs are real, so if you ask for one, they’ll probably tell you that. Instead, ask for a “round egg.” That’s what McDonald’s calls its fresh-cracked version. There’s even a register code for the round egg substitution, meaning it should show up on the receipt.
It’s worth noting this trick doesn’t work with every egg-forward meal at McDonald’s, specifically scrambled eggs and the sausage burrito. That’s because these orders feature egg preparations that can’t be substituted. Scrambled eggs are made using liquid eggs cooked fresh on the grill. The ingredients for the sausage burrito (liquid egg, sausage, tomato, chiles, and onion) are cooked together offsite, then reheated. But if you’re ordering a breakfast biscuit or bagel sandwich or a McGriddle, you can sub a round egg.
Whether that comes with an up-charge is up for debate. McDonald’s has promised it won’t add an egg surcharge to its breakfast items. But online reports vary as to whether you’ll get charged extra for requesting round eggs. People ordering in person have reported no extra fee, at least as of 2018, though it appears that ordering through an app, whether it’s McDonald’s app or a delivery app like Uber Eats, up-charges for the round egg by up to $3. It may also vary by location since many McDonald’s locations are independently owned franchises. If that’s too pricey, you can always make your own version of McDonald’s round egg at home using a Mason jar lid.
